CoachShare

CoachShare, group coaching at its best, allows you access to the expertise of a trained coach, resources of the CPR Team and connects you to peers who are working towards similar goals.

Coachshare leadership groups: (Church Planting, Church Renewal, First Call, Small Church and Interims) are formed around carefully chosen topics and challenges church leaders are facing.

Benefits of the one-year CoachShare program:

  • An initial one-on-one coaching session to set intentional goals (a coaching contract) between coach and the ministry leader.
  • At least once a month group coaching sessions, with a focus both on individual goals and monthly topics.
  • Acess to your coach on an as-needed basis.
  • Resources from your coach and the CPR Team related to each month's topic.
  • Free access to all CPR webinars during the coaching year.

Judicatories, local churches and pastors can partner together to stretch precious financial resources and experience CoachShare's transformational year!

Michigan Conference United Church of Christ Clergy can receive the benefits of CoachShare for a cost of $800.00 per year.

Contact:
Gregg Carlson
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(404)805-0934

CoachShare Flyer


Want to know more? Here is a testimonial from one of our own pastors:

As a relatively new, young, progressive, queer and activist-oriented associate pastor in a historically moderate mainline church, I have found the challenges of ministry quite steep! Totally worth the ride, but not without huge challenges. Being coached by Rev. Glenna Shepherd through the Center for Progressive Renewal has helped immensely in tackling those challenges. Here at First Congregational Church of Battle Creek, we are attempting something relatively uncharted: a new church start within an already existing congregation. My colleague, Rev. Thomas Ryberg and I have been charged with forming Christian community with the unchurched, under 40 crowd with half of our time and serving the longer-term, already established members with the other half. The needs of our combined community are quite diverse, sometimes conflicting and often fairly overwhelming. Rev. Shepherd helps us tackle the micro-details of liturgical life, finance and administration, and deploying lay leadership while also helping us think/love into the macro issues that arise in the Body of Christ: intimacy, conflict, life and death. The presence of coaching brings a comfort to rely on. The offered expertise of coaching gives those receiving it practical tools and resources to apply in the congregational setting. Both are invaluable, especially to those of us who are rookies!

In Christ,
Rev. Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds
Associate Pastor, First Congregational Church of Battle Creek

 

Small Church Ministry Resources

Thank you to Kathy Schuen (First Cong. UCC, Constantine) for sharing reading list for small church ministries (from the Center for Progressive Renewal webinar led by Elizabeth Dilley).

 

 

 


 

The Vital Growth Mission Area Team's mandate will focus on UCC identity, local church evangelism, member retention, parish revitalization, new church starts, marketing and advertising.  The Vitality and Growth Mission Area Team (or MAT) will assume the responsibilities formerly entrusted to the Commission for Church Development and the Communications Committee.VGMAT Logo smaller

Facilitator:  Rev. Mike Cooper

Conference Staff person: Rev. Cheryl Burke

 
Purpose:  Making Space for the Transforming Love of God

 

The Michigan Conference’s Vital Growth Mission Area Team supports the growth of faithful vitality in your congregation and spurs the growth of new churches in our midst. Here are a number of resources available to your existing congregation or new church start vision:

 

The Vital Growth Mission Area Team has/is provided services in the following areas.  If you are interested in learning more, please contact us and/or check out the websites provided. Vitality Tool Box .


Growth/Revitalization Resources

   Convergence, formerly The Center for Progressive Renewal, supports the reshaping of organizations, congregations and leaders engaged in an age of movement from “organized religion” to “organizing religion” driven by the values of an inclusive, progressive theological vision for a more just world for all. The Michigan Conference works with Convergence to support vitality in local congregations. 

 

courageous faith summit

The Michigan Conference UCC has purchased a Lifetime Access; please use the link below to your own virtual gathering of people, of faith and moral conscience:
https://faithlead.org/p/courageousfaith/?product_id=1439364&coupon_code=2020SUMMIT4EVER

Important Instructions:

  • Follow the link above
  • Scroll to the bottom of the page 
  • Click "Enroll in Course for $249 FREE"
  • Fill out Form
  • Enter Code:  2020SUMMIT4EVER

 

   The Center for Parish Development provides resources and consulting to transform churches for the sake of God’s mission. 

   Clergy Leadership Institute and Voyle and Voyle Consulting provide coaching, training and resources for church transformation. 

   GraceNet provides research, coaching and consulting in the effective spiritual leadership of new and revitalizing congregations. 

   The United Church of Christ’s Congregational Vitality Team offers a wealth of free, downloadable resources.

Conference Programs & Grants

  • New Beginnings program for small churches considering a fresh start for ministry in their communities.
  • Grants from the Bertha C. Dayton Fund are awarded annually for assisting rural, small town or village churches in Michigan and supporting their pastors and families.

Applications will be available soon.


Teachers & Thinkers
 

   Author Anthony Robinson serves as speaker, teacher and coach in the area of church renewal and vitality. 

• Author, speaker and teacher Diana Butler Bass provides insight about the larger cultural trends affecting the church.

 

New Churches 

   Church Development Start Up Kit. Please contact Lisa Soulliere This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for your own free kit.

 

Church Resources: Closure - Legacy - Merger

Here’s an update on some resources and good practices around closure, legacy, and merger.

  • A caring legacy
    A church in Wisconsin as part of their larger distribution of legacy assets set up a fund through the Conference Foundation to ‘provide for the on-going pastoral care needs of members who do not join other congregations.  Care would include regular visits, as-needed visits (i.e. hospitalization), and a funeral service’.    This legacy helps to ease and answer the often-asked questions about care for older, homebound members, or members in nursing homes.  A retired pastor has been hired for this ministry.  The church created a very complete legacy proposal document that uplifted the church’s mission to the UCC, the local community and spiritual/medical care of UCC members.  Contact Rev. Andrew Warner in WI conference for more information.
  • Closure and Legacy Coaching
    Indiana-Kentucky Conference trained a group of coaches to work with churches in transition, including closure and legacy.  Contact Rev. Monica Ouellette for more information.  Several other conferences have coaching or closure/legacy support groups.  I attached a copy of the powerpoint I shared in conversation with the IK coaches.

 

Upcoming Church Vitality Events:

 

 


Upcoming 2023 Meeting dates

 

 

 

 

 


Contact Us

5945 Park Lake Road
East Lansing, MI 48823

P.O. Box 1006
East Lansing, MI 48826

Voice: 517.332.3511

Fax: 517.339.2621

E-mail:conference@michucc.org

© 2023 Michigan Conference of the United Church of Christ | All Rights Reserved.